Why has Blizzard chosen to make Dodge and Parry bad stats?

I'm really trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Protection Paladins are now gearing as if we were DPS.

Dodge and Parry are, quite clearly, tank stats. However, they are now no longer good tank stats. In what way does that make sense? As a tank, just by the stat names, you'd think Dodging and Parrying attacks would be a top priority.

So what's the deal? Why has Blizzard made it so that we are gearing like a DPS spec?

It's not really a big deal and doesn't mean we're bad tanks, I'm just wondering why, from a logical standpoint, Dodge and Parry are no longer good tanking stats.

They're not "bad stats", Mastery just scales better with Hit/Exp/Haste. A heavy Parry/Dodge build still takes less overall damage than a Hit/Exp/Haste/Mastery build, it's just far spiky-er. That's not so different than it was in Cata, Dodge and Parry weren't bad stats when it came to reducing physical hits, Dragon Soul just didn't like them (minus Warmaster).

They're not "bad stats", Mastery just scales better with Hit/Exp/Haste. A heavy Parry/Dodge build still takes less overall damage than a Hit/Exp/Haste/Mastery build, it's just far spiky-er. That's not so different than it was in Cata, Dodge and Parry weren't bad stats when it came to reducing physical hits, Dragon Soul just didn't like them (minus Warmaster).

To be fair, DS didn't like Mastery either. It was Stam or gtfo if you were a shield tank.

No, for palas at least it was stamina because you already could cap mastery very easy.
And when is the last time dodge/parry were good tanking stats? Avoidance is good only if you can get loads of it and Blizzard took care of it long time ago.

Dodge and parry probably won't ever be good again except on niche fights like baleroc. Its the simple problem of avoidance being rng. Healers and tanks alike prefer the tanks health pools to be smooth so cd's and healing are not wasted with a mass panic about the tank just having dropped to 10% then dodging the next 4 moves. The only time avoidance would become the goto stats is if mana was truly limited and even then it asks the question is mana really saved if the healers panic?

The other reason dodge/parry aren't really liked as stats is they're hard to balance. You either have your tank with so much avoidance you need to make bosses 2 shot him to actually make the healers pay attention to tank healing which adds to the rng element or you add steep dr's as blizzard has done which makes it boring to gain tank gear after the initial tier e.g: Yay I've gained 0.1 dodge that's going to make the difference!)

Oh and to explain a little why we're gearing towards hit/exp/haste/mastery blizzard separated dodge/parry and block so it is now impossible to block cap. So we cannot smooth our health via cataclysm methods. The only way we can smooth our health is to have the highest uptime possible of SOTR which comes from generating as much holy power as possible. So having hit/exp caps so we never miss a holy power generator or SOTR and having haste increase the number of holy power moves we can use in a given time frame is all we can do to help our healers out.

I have to say I've gone to my Warrior but I'm reading some Pally-tailored articles and it blew my mind that Theck and others were advocating not only HARD CAPPING Expertise, but wanting HASTE of all things. I mean, it still feels crazy weird and wrong to be trying to cap Hit/Exp as a Prot Warrior. I can only imagine how it must feel for Paladins looking at gear and saying that they want pure DPS gear (as opposed to hybrid could-be-tank-or-dps gear) over the tank gear.

I honestly think Blizzard made a big mistake with the active mitigation. The next logical step would be to remove tanking plate the way they removed tanking leather and change the stats of plate tanks to make them get more benefits from DPS gear.

They're not bad stats, you've just failed to understand how stats work with tanks now. The only reason right now that tanks are getting hit/exp/mastery is to smooth out damage levels due to our gear. Having Parry/Dodge on our gear is still brilliant. Once we get more stats again in later tiers or even the end of this tier then you'll see how much you love them.

And the whole "haste" thing - go for it, if you like doing 5man dungeons. If you want challenge modes/raids then you won't be doing haste at all you'll be doing hit/exp/mastery. You've always been able to do funky builds in 5mans, just with MOP with the delay of raid launch everyone suddenly thinks it's great. Theck even has some maths on it and sure haste is actually good but its not as good as the mastery build. So therefore you don't use haste in the raid setups (at least not now) so that argument is completely void because for the content where number balancing matters, you won't be going for haste.

Haste is not a funky build you numb-nut. And if you would bother to actually read Theck's math you would understand it's a tossup bettwen haste and mastery for smoothing out dmg, haste giving also more dps so better overall.

Which is also the main reason dodge/parry haven't been good stats since Blizzard introduced DR on avoidance. So no, having parry/dodge is not brilliant. Dodge and parry on an item is actually THE WORST possible combo if stats are relatively equal.
And at higher levels of gear you'll just want more and more haste and mastery unless there's a gimmick in the fight that prevents the "active mitigation".

I honestly think Blizzard made a big mistake with the active mitigation. The next logical step would be to remove tanking plate the way they removed tanking leather and change the stats of plate tanks to make them get more benefits from DPS gear.

Which could have several advantages - if done right. Simplifies the loot tables, and places the emphasis on player choice; it could also allow tank DPS to scale with gear and so allow Vengeance to be tweaked/removed. You simply get one set of gear and then gem/enchant/reforge it to the role you want.

The problem with haste as prot is that right now it's pretty much impossible to get a meaningful amount of it to pass the threshold where it will cause a significant survivability increase due to Sanctity of Battle. You're better off going with hit/exp cap, mastery and then dodge/parry. Furthermore it's pretty much impossible in current gear to "cap" mastery so there's not really a drop-off point for the stat. Meaning that mastery will just continue to be a better choice as a secondary stat for reforging, gemming, enchanting etc after hit/exp caps have been satisfied.

So, yeah. Previous gearing strategies of mastery stacking are fine, just with the extra requirement to cap hit/exp thrown in the mix. As others have said, parry and dodge aren't "bad" stats, it's just that right now we can't get enough of them to make any sort of dent on our avoidance numbers.

Blizzard made a mistake putting block on a separate table from dodge and parry. They didn't want us to cap block this time around, but the cheap route they took to ensure that we would not grossly devalued avoidance. Unfortunately, our T14 set is dripping with avoidance stats, and I doubt the item team is going to make a dramatic shift from parry/dodge to haste in the next raiding tier.

Here's hoping for a buff to our avoidance stats from the class/spec team some time in the future instead. I won't be holding my breath, though.

The problem with haste as prot is that right now it's pretty much impossible to get a meaningful amount of it to pass the threshold where it will cause a significant survivability increase due to Sanctity of Battle.

Well, dropping CD of CS/HotR to 4 seconds, having Judgement on 5,3 sec CD, AS on 13,3 sec CD and getting 1,3 sec GCD feels quite good enough already. More buttons to press, more fun to have. I enjoy haste-stacking.

Well, dropping CD of CS/HotR to 4 seconds, having Judgement on 5,3 sec CD, AS on 13,3 sec CD and getting 1,3 sec GCD feels quite good enough already. More buttons to press, more fun to have. I enjoy haste-stacking.

Gotta agree with you. My gear is by no means great, unlucky with raid drops this week. But sitting without haste buff on a 3.8 sec cd on CS 5 sec judgement and 12.7 sec AS. It just feels great.

---------- Post added 2012-10-09 at 08:14 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Farabee

So, yeah. Previous gearing strategies of mastery stacking are fine, just with the extra requirement to cap hit/exp thrown in the mix. As others have said, parry and dodge aren't "bad" stats, it's just that right now we can't get enough of them to make any sort of dent on our avoidance numbers.

Actually with how DR hits parry and dodge aswell as how they put block and avoidance on different combat tables actually makes parry and doge horrible stats, even if we would have double the stats we have now.

Well, dropping CD of CS/HotR to 4 seconds, having Judgement on 5,3 sec CD, AS on 13,3 sec CD and getting 1,3 sec GCD feels quite good enough already. More buttons to press, more fun to have. I enjoy haste-stacking.

To get a 4.2sec CS/5.3sec Judgment you'd need around 5000 Haste, giving you ~3HP/min equating to 3 more seconds of SotR. You also need to spend ~8000+ more rating into Hit/Expertise to make sure you don't miss, because otherwise you didn't gain any SotR uptime from the Haste.

To get a 4.2sec CS/5.3sec Judgment you'd need around 500 Haste, giving you ~3HP/min equating to 3 more seconds of SotR. You also need to spend ~8000+ more rating into Hit/Expertise to make sure you don't miss, because otherwise you didn't gain any SotR uptime from the Haste.

Yeah seems totally worth it.

Are you sure you didn't mess up numbers? I'm sitting on 3400-ish haste while being hitcapped and softcapped on expertise.

To get a 4.2sec CS/5.3sec Judgment you'd need around 500 Haste, giving you ~3HP/min equating to 3 more seconds of SotR. You also need to spend ~8000+ more rating into Hit/Expertise to make sure you don't miss, because otherwise you didn't gain any SotR uptime from the Haste.

Yeah seems totally worth it.

You do realise that hit and expertise does not only give towards the "extra attacks" provided by haste but also towards all attacks, and if you are not going for hit and exp cap regardless of your choice between mastery and haste you are kinda bad ?

You do realise that hit and expertise does not only give towards the "extra attacks" provided by haste but also towards all attacks, and if you are not going for hit and exp cap regardless of your choice between mastery and haste you are kinda bad ?

No one is saying Hit/Expertise is bad, but that Mastery is better than Haste at lower gear levels. Reading problems?

Originally Posted by Lethora

Are you sure you didn't mess up numbers? I'm sitting on 3400-ish haste while being hitcapped and softcapped on expertise.

Big difference between being soft-capped and hard-capped on expertise at this point in time. After getting those the amount of stats you'll have left over to go into Haste/Mastery isn't going to be a lot.

Actually with how DR hits parry and dodge aswell as how they put block and avoidance on different combat tables actually makes parry and doge horrible stats, even if we would have double the stats we have now.

...and considering that our tier gear is dripping with those "horrible" stats, do you think they're going to let it stay that way? Once more raid content is out and they're seeing prot go for "ret" pieces over their tier and tank pieces, they'll hotfix it faster than you can say "to the ground". GC has a precendent for punishing people who don't play the way he wants you to.

...and considering that our tier gear is dripping with those "horrible" stats, do you think they're going to let it stay that way? Once more raid content is out and they're seeing prot go for "ret" pieces over their tier and tank pieces, they'll hotfix it faster than you can say "to the ground". GC has a precendent for punishing people who don't play the way he wants you to.

None of our tier pieces are dodge/parry, so there's not really an issue. Avoidance isn't bad; it's just not as good as the other stats. Having some on our gear isn't a problem. And given the set bonuses, I doubt we'll be seeing Prot giving up their set pieces for Ret gear.